A NATIONAL 
AMENDMENT FOR 
WOMAN 
SUFFRAGE 


By IDA HUSTED HARPER 


PRINTED DECEMBER* 1915 


I NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE PUBLISHING 
COMPANY, Inc. 

505 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 








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A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 
FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

By Ida Husted Harper 

The movement for woman suffrage is now 
approaching its last stage, the goal of the 
early workers, which it has been left for the 
third generation to attain. A number of 
outposts have had to be taken, a vast 
amount of educational effort has been neces¬ 
sary to create a sentiment in favor of Con¬ 
gressional action on this matter of universal 
concern. Much work will still have to be 
done but the progress is sufficient to demon¬ 
strate that an amendment to the National 
Constitution for the enfranchisement of 
women is a certainty of the near future. 

The first convention to consider the 
Rights of Women was called by Lucretia 
Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others in 
1848, to meet at Seneca Falls in Western 
New York, Mrs. Stanton’s home-. In 1851 
the work was taken up by Susan B. Anthony, 
destined to be its supreme leader for the 
next half century. Meetings soon began to 
take place and societies to be formed in vari¬ 
ous States, so that by 1861 there was a well- 
defined movement toward woman suffrage. 
Large conventions were held annually in 
Eastern and Western cities, in which the 
most prominent men and women partici- 

Copyright, 1915. by Ida Husted Harper 


2 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

pated. The commencement of the Civil 
War ended all efforts for this purpose and its 
leaders devoted themselves for the next five 
years to the women’s part of every war. In 
1866 Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony issued 
a call for the scattered forces to come to¬ 
gether in convention in New York City, and 
here began the movement for woman suf¬ 
frage which has continued without a break. 

In the earlier days there had been no 
thought of enfranchising women in any way 
except through the submission of the ques¬ 
tion to the voters by the Legislature of each 
State, but now Congress, for the purpose of 
giving the ballot to the recently freed negro 
men, was about to submit an amendment to 
the National Constitution. This conven¬ 
tion was called to protest against “class 
legislation” and demand that women should 
be included. It adopted a Memorial to Con¬ 
gress, prepared by Mrs. Stanton, which con¬ 
tained a portion of Charles Sumner’s great 
speech, “Equal Rights for All,” and was a 
complete statement of woman’s right to the 
franchise. In Miss Anthony’s address she 
said: “Up to this hour we have looked only 
to State action for recognition of our rights, 
but now, by the results of the war, the whole 
question of suffrage reverts to Congress and 
the United States Constitution. The duty 
of Congress at this moment is to declare 
what shall be the true basis of representation 
in a republican form of government.” 


FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


3 


The petitions which during the preceding 
winter had been sent to Congress represented 
the first effort ever made for an amendment 
to the Federal Constitution for woman suf¬ 
frage, and the action of this convention 
marked the first organized demand—May 10, 
1866. At this time the American Equal Rights 
Association was formed. The following 
month the 14th Amendment was submitted 
by Congress for the ratification of the State 
Legislatures, and it was declared adopted by 
the necessary three-fourths in July, 1868. 

By this amendment the status of citizen¬ 
ship was for the first time definitely estab¬ 
lished—“All persons born or naturalized in 
the United States and subject to the juris¬ 
diction thereof are citizens.” This plainly 
put men and women on an exact equality as 
to citizenship. Then followed the broad 
statement: “No state shall make or enforce 
any law which shall abridge the privileges or 
immunities of citizens of the United States.” 
This also seemed to guarantee the equal 
rights of men and women. It was the 
second section which aroused the advocates 
of suffrage for women to vigorous protest: 

“Section 2. Representatives shall be ap¬ 
portioned among the several States according 
to their respective numbers, counting the 
whole number of persons in each state, ex¬ 
cluding Indians not taxed. But when the 
right to vote at any election for the choice of 
electors for President and Vice-President of 


4 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

the United States, Representatives in Con¬ 
gress, the Executive and Judicial officers of 
a State, or the members of the Legislature 
thereof, is denied to the male inhabitants of 
such State, being 21 years of age, and citizens 
of the United States, or in any way abridged, 
except for participation in rebellion or other 
crime, the basis of representation therein 
shall be reduced in the proportion which the 
number of such male citizens shall bear to 
the whole number of male citizens 21 years 
of age in such State.” 

Up to this time there was no mention of 
suffrage in the Federal Constitution except 
the provision for electing members of the 
lower house of Congress, but now for the 
first time it actually discriminated against 
women by imposing a penalty on the States 
for preventing men from voting but leaving 
them entirely free to prohibit women. When 
even this penalty proved insufficient to pro¬ 
tect negro men in their attempts to vote, 
Congress in 1869 submitted a 15th Amend¬ 
ment which was declared ratified the fol¬ 
lowing year: “The right of citizens of the 
United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of race, color or previous 
condition of servitude.” 

Again those who had been striving for two 
decades to obtain suffrage for women pro¬ 
tested by every means in their power against 
this second discrimination. They implored 


FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


5 


and demanded that the word “sex” should 
be included in this amendment, which would 
have forever settled the question, just as the 
omission of the word “male” in the 14th 
Amendment would have settled it. The 
most of the men who had stood by them in 
their early struggles for the vote, when both 
were working together for the freedom of the 
slaves, now sacrificed them rather than im¬ 
peril the political rights of the negro men. 
Some of the women themselves were per¬ 
suaded to abandon their opposition to these 
amendments by the promise of the party 
leaders that as soon as they were safely in¬ 
trenched in the constitution another should 
be placed there providing for woman suf¬ 
frage. This promise they never tried to 
keep and it still remains unfulfilled. 

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were 
never for one moment deceived or silenced, 
but in their paper, The Revolution, they op¬ 
posed these amendments as long as they 
were pending. A single quotation will indi¬ 
cate the tenor of their continuous protests: 
“The proposed amendment for manhood 
suffrage not only rouses woman’s prejudices 
against the negro but on the other hand his 
contempt and hostility towards her. . . . 

While we fully appreciate the philosophy 
that every extension of rights prepares the 
way for greater freedom to new classes and 
hastens the day of liberty to all, we at the 
same time see the immediate effect of class 


6 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

enfranchisement to be greater tyranny and 
abuse of those who have no voice in the 
government. Had Irishmen been disfran¬ 
chised in this country they would have made 
common cause with the negro in fighting for 
his rights, but when exalted above him they 
proved his worst enemies. The negro will be 
the victim for generations to come of the 
prejudice engendered by making this a white 
man’s government. While the enfranchise¬ 
ment of each new class of white men was a 
step toward his ultimate freedom, it in¬ 
creased his degradation in the transition 
period, and he touched the depths when all 
men but himself were crowned with citizen¬ 
ship. Just so with woman; while the en¬ 
franchisement of all men hastens the day for 
justice to her, it makes her degradation more 
complete in the transition state. It is to 
escape the added tyranny, persecutions, in¬ 
sults, horrors which surely will be visited 
upon her in the establishment of an aristoc¬ 
racy of sex in this republic, that we raise our 
indignant protest against this desecration 
of woman in the pending amendment.” 


Although the protests were in vain the 
women had learned that they might be re¬ 
lieved of the intolerable burden of having to 
obtain the suffrage State by State through 
permission of a majority of the individual 
voters. They had seen an entire class en¬ 
franchised through the quicker and easier 



FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


7 


way of amending the Federal Constitution, 
and they determined to invoke this power in 
their own behalf. From the office of The 
Revolution in the autumn of 1868 went out 
thousands of petitions to be signed and sent 
to Congress for the submission of an amend¬ 
ment to enfranchise women. Immediately 
after its assembling in December, 1868, Sen¬ 
ator S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, introduced a 
resolution providing that “the basis of suf¬ 
frage shall be that of citizenship, and all 
native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the 
same rights and privileges of the elective 
franchise, but each State shall determine the 
age, etc.” A few days later Representative 
George W. Julian, of Indiana, offered one in 
the House which declared: “The right of 
suffrage shall be based on citizenship . . . 
and all citizens, native or naturalized, shall 
enjoy this right equally . . . without any 
distinction or discrimination founded on 
sex.” These were the first propositions ever 
made in Congress for woman suffrage by 
National Amendment. 

In order to impress Congress with the 
seriousness of the demand, a convention— 
the first of its kind to meet in the National 
Capital—was held in Washington in Janu¬ 
ary, 1869, It continued several days with 
large audiences and an array of eminent 
speakers, including Lucretia Mott, Clara 
Barton, Mrs. Stanton, a number of men and 
Miss Anthony, the moving spirit of the 


8 


A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 


whole. In response Congress the next 
month submitted the 15th Amendment with 
even a stronger discrimination against 
women than the 14th contained. 


The annual gatherings of the Equal Rights 
Association had been growing more and 
more stormy while the 14th and 15th Amend¬ 
ments were pending and the point was 
reached -\yhere any criticism of them made 
by the women was met by their advocates 
with hisses and denunciation. Finally at the 
meeting of May 12, 1869, in New York City, 
with Mrs. Stanton presiding, an attempt was 
made, led by Frederick Douglass, to force 
through a resolution of endorsement. Miss 
Anthony opposed it in an impassioned 
speech in which she said: “If you will not 
give the whole loaf of justice to the entire 
people, then give it first to women, to the 
most intelligent and capable of them at 
least. . . . If Mr. Douglass has noticed who 
applauded when he said black men first and 
white women afterwards, he would have 
seen that it was only the men.” 

The men succeeded in wresting the control 
of the convention from the women, who then 
decided that the time had come for them to 
have their own organization and endeavor to 
have the question of their enfranchisement 
considered entirely on its own merits. Three 
days later, at the Women’s Bureau in East 
23rd Street, where now the Metropolitan 



FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


9 


Life Building stands, with representatives 
present from nineteen States, the National 
Woman Suffrage Association was formed. 
Mrs. Stanton was made president, Miss 
Anthony chairman of the executive com¬ 
mittee. One hundred women became mem¬ 
bers that evening and here was begun the 
organized work for an Amendment to the 
Federal Constitution to confer woman suf¬ 
frage which was to continue without ceasing 
for more than forty years. 

Before the work for a 16th Amendment 
was fairly organized, however, a number of 
members of Congress and constitutional 
lawyers took the ground that women were 
already enfranchised by the first clause of 
the 14th Amendment. At the convention 
held at St. Louis in the autumn of 1869, 
Francis Minor, a prominent lawyer of that 
city, presented this question so convincingly, 
that the newly formed National Association 
took up and conducted an active campaign 
in its favor for several years. In 1872 
women tried to vote in a number of States 
and in some of them were successful. Miss 
Anthony’s vote was accepted in Rochester, 
N. Y., and later she was arrested, charged 
with a crime, tried by a Justice of the U. S. 
Supreme Court and fined $100.00. The 
inspectors in St. Louis refused to register 
Mrs. Minor, she brought suit against them, 
and her husband carried the case to the 



10 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

Supreme Court of the United States 
(Minor vs. Happersett). He presented an 
able and exhaustive argument but an ad¬ 
verse decision was rendered March 29,1875. 

The women then returned to the original 
demand for a 16th Amendment, which in¬ 
deed many of them, including Miss Anthony 
and Mrs. Stanton, never had entirely aban¬ 
doned. Beginning with 1870 Congressional 
committees had granted a hearing on woman 
suffrage every winter, even though no reso¬ 
lution was before them. Under the auspices 
of the National Association, petitions by the 
tens of thousands poured into Congress, 
which were publicly presented. Finally on 
January 10, 1878, Senator A. A. Sargent, 
of California, offered the following joint 
resolution: “The right of citizens of the 
United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of sex.” 

The Committee on Privileges and Elec¬ 
tions granted a hearing which consumed a 
part of two days, with the large Senate re¬ 
ception room filled to overflowing and the 
corridors crowded. Extended hearings were 
given also by the House committee, and con¬ 
stitutional arguments of the highest order 
were made by noted women in attendance 
at the national suffrage convention. And 
yet the Senate committee reported adversely 
and the House committee not at all. 

This took place nearly forty years ago. 


FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 11 

Senator Sargent’s amendment, which during 
the 63d Congress was known as the Bristow- 
Mondell Amendment, has been presented 
to every Congress during this period and 
hearings have been granted by committees 
of every one. The women who have made 
their pleadings and arguments simply to 
persuade these committees to give a favor¬ 
able report and bring the question before 
their respective Houses for debate, have com¬ 
prised the most distinguished this country 
« has produced. It is only by reading their 
addresses in the History of Woman Suffrage 
that one can form an idea of their masterly 
exposition of laws and constitution, their 
logic, strength and often-times deep pathos. 

There are in the pages of history many 
detached speeches of rare eloquence for the 
rights of man, but nowhere else is there so 
long unbroken a record of appeals for these 
rights—the rights of man and woman. 
Again and again at the close of the suffrage 
hearings the chairman and members of the 
committee have said that none on other 
questions equalled them in dignity and 
ability. From 1878 to 1896 there were five 
favorable majority reports from Senate 
committees and two from House commit¬ 
tees, and nine adverse reports. After this, 
when Miss Anthony no longer spent her 
winters in Washington, none of any kind 
was made until, the movement for woman 
suffrage entered a new era in 1914. 


12 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

One significant event, however, occurred 
during this time. Largely through the 
efforts of Senator Henry W. Blair, of New 
Hampshire, the resolution for a 16th Amend¬ 
ment was brought before the Senate. After 
a long and earnest discussion the vote on 
January 25, 1887, resulted in 16 ayes, all 
Republican; 34 nays, eleven Republican, 
twenty-three Democratic; twenty-six absent. 


It soon became apparent to the leaders of 
the movement that there would have to be a 
good deal of favorable action by the States 
before Congress would give serious consid¬ 
eration to this question, and therefore under 
the auspices of the National Association, 
they have continuously helped with money 
and work the campaigns for securing the suf¬ 
frage by amendment of State constitutions. 
Miss Anthony herself took part in seven such 
campaigns, only to see all of them end in 
failure. Up to 1910 there had been at least 
twenty and only two had been successful— 
Colorado, 1893; Idaho, 1896; Wyoming and 
Utah had come into the Union with equal 
suffrage in their constitutions, but all were 
sparsely settled States whose influence on 
Congress was slight. Commercialism had 
become the dominating force in politics and 
moral issues were crowded into the back¬ 
ground. 

In 1910 an insurgent movement developed 
in Congress and extended into various States 




FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


13 


to throw off the party yoke and adopt pro¬ 
gressive measures. One of its first fruits was 
the granting of suffrage to women in the 
State of Washington. Under the same in¬ 
fluence the women of California were enfran¬ 
chised in 1911, a far-reaching victory. In 
1912 Oregon, Arizona and the well populated 
State of Kansas adopted woman suffrage. 
In 1913 the Legislature of Alaska gave votes 
to women, and that of Illinois granted all the 
suffrage possible without a referendum to the 
electors, including municipal, county and that 
for presidential electors. In 1914 Nevada 
and Montana completed the enfranchise¬ 
ment of women in the western part of the 
United States, over a third of the whole area. 

The effect upon Congress of the addition 
of this vast body of between three and four 
million women to the electorate was im¬ 
mediately apparent. A woman suffrage 
amendment to the Federal Constitution had 
suddenly become a live issue. The national 
Association appointed a committee to re¬ 
main in Washington and look after its in¬ 
terests. A circumstance greatly in its favor 
was the shattering of the traditional idea 
that the Federal Constitution must not be 
further amended, by the adoption of two 
new Articles—for an income tax and the 
election of U. S. Senators by popular vote. 

At the opening of the 63d Congress the 
chairmanship of the Committee on Woman 
Suffrage instead of being filled by an “anti,” 



14 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

as heretofore, was given to Senator Charles 
S. Thomas, of Colorado, always an ardent 
suffragist, and a friendly committee was 
appointed. There were now eighteen mem¬ 
bers of the Senate with women constituents 
and several million women were eligible to 
vote, so that it was possible to bring to bear 
a pressure which had never before existed. 
Many of the large newspapers and a con¬ 
siderable public sentiment had now become 
favorable. The committee reported the bill 
with but one dissenting voice. The extended 
discussion was conducted by Senator Henry 
F. Ashurst, of Arizona, and the vote on 
March 19, 1914, stood, ayes, 35; nays, 34; 
lacking eleven of a two-thirds majority. 
Twenty Republicans, one Progressive and 
fourteen Democrats voted aye; twelve Repub¬ 
licans and twenty-two Democrats voted no. 

The struggle to secure a vote in the House 
of Representatives was long and difficult. 
Many committee hearings were held; the 
Democratic caucus declined to allow it to 
come before the House; the Judiciary Com¬ 
mittee for a long time refused to report it and 
finally did so without recommendation. At 
last, however, under the leadership of the 
Hon. Frank W. Mondell, of Wyoming, it was 
brought to a vote January 12, 1915, after a 
discussion that lasted ten hours—174 ayes, 
204 nays. Eighty-six Democrats and eighty- 
eight Republicans and Progressives voted 


FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 


15 


aye ; 171 Democrats and thirty-three Re¬ 
publicans voted no. 

The effort will continue without cessation 
until such an amendment is submitted. One 
has only to make a superficial study of cam¬ 
paigns for amending State constitutions to 
recognize the cruel burdens they put upon 
women. If after all the expenditure of labor, 
time and money they had a fair chance they 
might be more willing to undertake the task, 
but no class striving for any object ever 
faced such obstacles. They find arrayed 
against them the corporate interests that 
oppose any further increase of voters; the 
liquor interests with their vast capital and 
the immense number of votes they control; 
all the forces of evil that prey on society ; the 
party “machines” that look with dread on 
this new element in politics; the large body 
of foreign men that come from countries 
where they are born and bred in the belief 
of woman’s inferiority, and that large num¬ 
ber of narrow-minded, non-progressive 
American men who believe woman’s sphere 
was fixed in the Garden of Eden. 

This is the electorate which women must 
face after an effort usually of years to per¬ 
suade the Legislature to submit the question. 
They must strain every nerve to raise the 
necessary funds; they must leave their 
homes and spend months in the hardest 
campaigning, subject to humiliations they 
would not meet in going to the polls for a 


16 A NATIONAL AMENDMENT 

lifetime, and when election day comes they 
cannot cast a single vote on the measure for 
which they have toiled. An adverse major¬ 
ity, no matter how small, sends them back to 
the very beginning of the struggle. 

There have been altogether over thirty- 
five of these campaigns and victories in only 
nine as the meager result. In 1914 there 
were seven campaigns and only two success¬ 
ful. In 1915 there were four, with no new 
state won for equal suffrage, although over 
a million votes were cast in its favor. Amer¬ 
ican men in the full enjoyment of a fran¬ 
chise which has cost them nothing whatever 
have no right to require this sacrifice of 
American women. They should demand of 
Congress the submission of an amendment 
to the National Constitution which will free 
women from the unbearable conditions of an 
appeal to the individual voters with their 
secret ballot, and enable them to carry their 
case to the Legislatures and have it decided 
there. This would not be an interference 
with States’ rights, for the question would be 
decided in each by the body elected to repre¬ 
sent the people, and indirectly by the men of 
the State, for they alone elect the Legisla¬ 
ture. Suffragists throughout the country 
have become thoroughly aroused to the sit¬ 
uation and henceforth will concentrate their 
forces on Congress until it submits a Na¬ 
tional Amendment. 






























































